


I Defined, I Designed

by A_Tomb_With_A_View



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alex has anxiety, Hopeful Ending, Idk if this is unreliable narrator or we but the narrator idealises alcohol abuse, M/M, Reggie has fibromyalgia, Some Fluff, Some angst, Tw: In depth discussion of substance abuse, Tw: lighthearted tone when discussing the above, Underage Drinking, alcohol and substance abuse as a coping mechanism, fair bit of angst I think, hurt/comfort maybe, not entirely sure how to tag this, please heed the warnings, that aside, tw: discussing of alcohol addiction, tw: mentions of addiction to painkillers, tw: romanticising/idealising substance abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:34:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28735794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Tomb_With_A_View/pseuds/A_Tomb_With_A_View
Summary: Alex has talked to Reggie about it before. The way everything feels when you’re so far into a bottle or a blister pack that the world fades away, with all the worries and disappointments of everyday life blurring out. It’s not happier, like that, not really, but it’s less scary, and less painful. Sometimes Alex would do anything to be in a little less pain.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Flynn & Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters & Willie, Bobby | Trevor Wilson/Reggie Peters, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 27
Kudos: 107





	I Defined, I Designed

**Author's Note:**

> !!!! Please heed the fucking warning, I have literally no reference for how angsty or triggering this is, the only person that has read this fully asides me is in a similar sitch, so it may come across insensitive, I’m not sure!!!!  
> Disclaimer-y thing: this is entirely based off my own personal experience with the aftereffects of medical narcotics and having the cravings described below, and my own experience with craving alcohol. This is not anything I’ve actually processed or researched like the usual stuff I write angst about, it’s literally just some ramblings about how I feel, and I don’t want anyone to get hurt reading this  
> With that said and done, enjoy (?)

Alex has talked to Reggie about it before. The way everything feels when you’re so far into a bottle or a blister pack that the world fades away, with all the worries and disappointments of everyday life blurring out. It’s not happier, like that, not really, but it’s less scary, and less painful. Sometimes Alex would do anything to be in a little less pain. 

He knows he’s not in pain really, not like Reggie is with his blood tests and his fancy diagnoses, but his head tells him he is on some level, which is basically what’s happening with Reggie anyways. They talk about that, sometimes. About how similar everything really is, when Reggie’s chest starts hurting and Alex stops being able to breathe.

When Alex gets given the anti-anxiety pills and Reggie gets taken off the codeine and whatever other drug cocktails they shove at him, they talk about that too, sometimes. About how sometimes the SSRIs and TCAs don’t do anywhere near what his dad’s stolen bottle of vodka would, and about how even though the codeine hadn’t done anything for Reggie’s pain, he’d been so out of it half the time he’d not really been able to process it. The rest of the time he’d been asleep anyway, so it didn’t really matter at all. The stuff he’s on now is better, really, but it’s harder to have to be awake for so long, to feel things that much again.

Sometimes Alex feels stupid talking to Reggie about it. His anxiety is nothing like Reggie’s fibromyalgia. He’s not physically  _ in pain.  _ He’s just… stressed. In a bad place. In need of some decent exercise and a good diet. When things go wrong, he doesn’t spend hours laying in bed with a hot water bottle and a packet of painkillers on the dresser for when the last ones run out, he just takes half an hour to indulge in thoroughly hating himself, then tries his best to sweep it under the carpet. If the carpet was real, it would probably look like he was hiding a body under there, by now, but he ignores thay, too. 

Sometimes Alex feels like Reggie’s the only person in the whole world who understands everything. 

Well, who understands  _ almost  _ everything. 

The one thing they don’t talk about is the one thing Alex wishes more than anything they would, but they don’t, and Reggie tells him everything so he assumes that maybe Reggie just doesn’t feel it. Maybe he doesn’t look at the packet of emergency codeine Alex knows the doctor told him to keep on hand and think about how much easier everything would be, the way Alex does when his mom buys his dad a new bottle of tequila for Christmas. 

Maybe he’s stronger than Alex. 

He knows Reggie hated being on the strong stuff anyways, even if it was simpler. He imagines everyone else in their friendship group would hate that kind of thing too, but the idea of everything being slowed down so much sounds glorious. He’s never had enough time to process each and every individual thought. He wonders if that’s what makes being drunk so appealing. He wonders if Reggie feels the same ever. 

It’s not all the time, at least not anymore, and he’s never actually done it. It’s just that, the nights when he’d sneak out with some rum and some lemonade and the four of them would spend the night drinking were so much more fun than other nights. So much more simple. He thinks it’s fairly understandable that when he’s lying awake at three am and Luke has seen his text but not responded, and Willie didn’t say I love you before saying goodnight like he usually does and  _ god,  _ he’d been curt with Julie this morning at band practice and he hadn’t been able to find her to apologise and Bobby hadn’t wanted his pudding cup at lunch that the gin he knows is under the sink is suddenly a lot more appealing than riding out the feeling by himself. 

He counts the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling instead. 

He doesn’t know what drives him to bring it up to Reggie. He thinks if Reggie felt like that, felt the intense spikes of utter loathing that spike through him sometimes, when the band group chat turns into a compliment fest about singing and he doesn’t really sing, at least, not around anyone but Willie, so it makes sense that no one mentions him but really, he’d kind of thought his drum solo had been  _ fire  _ today, and no one mentions it, if he felt the awful sinking feeling in his chest that never reaches rock bottom, that just keeps sinking and sinking and sinking as every scenario flicks through his head - Bobby thinks he’s weak, Luke thinks he’s a waste of time, Julie wishes he’d stop snapping at her boyfriend, Reggie wishes he’d stop texting to bitch about things that he has so much worse, Willie just wants for him to stop  _ talking -  _ that he’d probably mention it. Reggie doesn’t keep this kind of thing to himself. 

But… even if he doesn’t feel it, he’s going to get it the most out of any of them. Bobby indulges temptations as and when they occur, but he’s never seemed to get hooked on anything. Alex has known him chain smoke at a party then not touch a cigarette for nine months, then blow smoke rings better than anyone in Senior year. Alex has known him to kiss Reggie because he decided that was what he wanted, but still function when Reggie took a day off, or travelled out of state for some fancy maths thing, not like Alex, who can barely keep his head above the water when Willie’s not there. Luke moves from one thing to the other in outside of music and Julie so fast that Alex doesn’t think anything like that could stick. He’d probably neck half the bottle to see if it helped, then remember he doesn’t like how everything feels so slowed down when he’s drunk and try another coping mechanism. Julie would talk to her dad. Willie… Alex doesn’t want Willie to know about these sides of him. Not yet. Not ever, really. So he calls Reggie. 

Reggie picks up on the first ring, which would be normal, except Alex is pretty sure he’s at Bobby’s. “What’s up, man?” 

Alex sighed and tilts his head back, remembers that Reggie had said he loved him just before they’d parted to go home. Remembers that Reggie  _ gets  _ him. “You ever wish you could go back?” He asks, quickly, all in a rush, desperate to get the words out. “To the hard stuff, I mean.” 

Reggie laughs, low and mean in a way Alex has never heard it. “All the time,” he admits. “All the fuckin’ time.” 

After a pause, Alex speaks again, voice cracking with nerves or relief or some odd mixture of the two. “How come you never- how come you didn’t tell me? I know that’s a stupid question, I just… how come?” 

In his minds eye, Reggie shrugs and runs his hand through his hair. Bobby is probably in the kitchen, grilling some ridiculous concoction that involves far more avocados than should be legal. “I didn’t want you to think I got addicted,” he explains slowly. Alex thinks, absently, that when he talks slow, he always sounds like he should end his sentence with a drag on a cigarette. “I didn’t. It’s not… I don’t  _ need  _ it. I just wish my mind would be that quiet again.” 

Alex hums, considers how many creaky floorboards he would have to avoid to reach the wine rack. 

When he doesn’t say anything else, Reggie says quietly - quietly because Bobby is probably only one room away, but maybe also quiet because it’s hard to admit things without the promise of honesty in return - “Did you just call to ask me that?” 

“Oh, no.” Alex shakes his head even as he remembers that Reggie can’t see him. “I’m not… I don’t have issues with alcohol,” he says first, probably too hurried to be believable, but it’s true. He’s always been fine. Reggie knows this bit, too. Alex has too much inherited guilt not to start most of their conversations like this. “I’m fine when we drink all together. When my head is in a good place. I like it, even. Everything dulls out, and the world spins so much that I have to pay attention, and Willie’s all heart eyes when he’s drunk. It’s hard to believe he hates me when he looks at me like that.”

Reggie makes a wounded sound. “Al, he doesn’t-”

“I know.” Alex nodded. His heart pounded in his ears. “I know. But… it’s easier to believe then. Everything is easier to believe then. We have our entire future pinned on a band that we formed two years ago. It’s easier to believe everything is gonna work and that I’m one of you guys and that I’m dating the guys I’ve been hopeless for since fifth grade when I’m, when I’m pouring a cup of rum into the fourth batch of strawberry daiquiris of the night… sometimes when my head gets back I just… I want it to be like that, and my parents drink a lot, I know I could… I just… I find myself  _ wanting  _ a drink, not for fun but because it would make everything go away.” 

“Yeah,” Reggie says eventually. “I get… I get that. Sometimes I just think… when it’s four am and the only thing I’ve really achieved is some stupid college maths shit that my parents didn’t even come to because they were trying to put the house up for sale so they’ve got enough money to get a divorce… I think it would be easier.” He laughs awkwardly. Or bitterly. Alex can’t really tell. It’s seventeen creaky floorboards to the winerack. “Its so fucking tempting.” 

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Alex says quietly, unsure if his voice will even carry through the phone. “If I was drunk, it wouldn’t hurt. Nothing would hurt.”

“I’d sleep for eighteen hours,” Reggie sighs wistfully. “It would hurt but… not as much. Nowhere near as much. Not conscious for long enough to feel it properly.”

“I could call Willie,” Alex breaths. “That’s what I’d do, I think. “Not to even tell them anything. I just like listening to their voice, but it’s always so hard to be the one to call first. Some nights it’s okay, but the nights when I need it are always the nights it’s hardest.”

Reggie sighs. “Yeah. That’s a good idea. I think… I think you should remember that they like talking to you as much as you like talking to him... I think I’d tell Bobbers that I love him.”

“Do you?” Alex asks, trying his best not to sound sceptical. He knows Reggie loves Bobby, knows it like he knows he loves Willie, but Reggie doesn’t verbalise his feelings until he’s had time to make sure they’re not just a fucky result of latching onto whoever shows him affection, and it’s a big jump from the four hours they spent last week reassuring themselves and each other that what they had was what they had, not a result of being overly clingy or too quick to get attached and their friends not wanting to hurt them.

“Yeah,” Reggie says immediately, and Alex can hear something in the background that he suspects is Reggie nestling into the obscene number of pillows Bobby always has on his bed, probably with the stupid grin he usually has when he talks about Bobby. “Yeah.” 

“That’s awesome, man,” Alex tells him immediately. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I’d tell him, and then I’d sleep for sixteen hours,” Reggie presses forward. “And then if his fun emotional availability issues step in and he doesn’t say it back which triggers  _ my  _ abandonment issues, I wouldn’t even remember it.”

“Huh.” Alex considers that for a moment. “That’s pretty smart, Reg.” 

After a pause Reggie giggles. “It's mental illness, innit?” he manages to get out in quite possibly the worst accent Alex has ever heard. 

Alex loses it anyway, curling up on his side with a pillow clamped over his mouth so no one can hear him cackling away at the worst joke in the world. 

Eventually Reggie pulls it together. “Last night me and Bobaby were making out, and he just pulled away and looked at me really softly, and said in the most gentle voice I’ve ever heard him use, babe, have you considered therapy?” He says, voice still tight with suppressed laughter, and Alex can’t decide if it’s funnier because they really do both need to stop calling each other in the early am to dump shit on each other and perhaps consider a professional, or because he can so clearly picture Bobby deciding that that was so urgent that he needed to stop kissing Reggie to say so. 

“Hey, rat bastard, who’s that?” Bobby asks distantly, along with the godawful screech that happens when more than one person gets onto Bobby’s bed.

There’s the sound of kissing, which makes Alex want to cry, momentarily, because it always sounds so weird over the phone, but then Reggie speaks. “S’just ‘Lex, fuck face. Y’know, my favourite person?”

“Ah, I’ll go sit in the living room and pretend I’m not crying over Fairly Odd Parents, then,” Bobby promises. “Gimme a shout when you’re done, and tell Allie that his brain is fucking stupid and I’m ready to square up with his self esteem.”

There’s another screech, slightly lower than the last one, that indicates Bobby’s moving, and then there’s silence for a moment. “Bobert says-”

“I heard him,” Alex interrupts, wincing when how touched he is at Bobby’s instant defence of him even against himself so clearly comes through in his voice. “I heard him. You should tell him, man. He loves you, too.” 

There’s a silence where Alex assumes Reggie is nodding, then, “i want a cigarette.”

“Dude, you don’t even smoke,” Alex replies immediately, too thrown by the change in subject to do anything  _ but  _ respond. 

“I have, a couple of times,” Reggie admits. “Only once or twice. I hated it, and if Bobbit started again, I’d probably cry until he stopped again, but everyone always talks about how stress-relieving it is, and I would like to not be stressed.” 

Alex nods. “I get that. I got offered something… I don’t remember what it was, I was drunk outta my fuckin’ mind, but something to smoke, at the party last month. Then I got terrified by how close I was to saying yes and I had a panic attack and I ran home even though it was three miles and two am and if my parents knew I’ve even smelt alcohol outside of what they keep in the kitchen before they’d probably sacrifice me as an appeasement to God for their shitty parenting.”

Reggie snorts. That’s one of the things Alex loves about him. Bobby matches him for dark humour usually, but there’s a particular brand of self-hatred and parental bitching that only Reggie really gets. “If they were gonna sacrifice you as an appeasement to a god for their shitty parenting, they would’ve done it that time you wore fuchsia instead of magenta, remember?” 

Usually, when they get on this train, Alex ends up in weird, dark places, venting about the things that wind up with him staring at ceilings and counting the steps to the whiskey in the cellar. Tonight, he’s heard Bobby call Reggie “Rat bastard” in a tone more affectionate than he’s ever heard his mother adopt to talk to him, and he can’t stop giggling. “I’ve had Willie’s tongue in my mouth,” he gasps out, clutching the pillow to his chest. “I think it genuinely might be worse that they’re not a boy, Reginald, I’ve had Willie’s  _ tongue _ in my  _ mouth  _ and he’s not a boy, and my parents bought me a copy of playboy magazine last week.” He barely manages to finish what he’s saying before he dissolves back into desperate peals of laughter, barely muffled by the pillow. 

Reggie’s giggling on the other side too, and eventually, when they wind down to get words out, he sighs. “I gotta go, man, Bertie’s a little bitch and he’s watching the Wishology trilogy without me, which is my favourite, but… I’m glad you called. Call Willie, now, okay?” 

Alex hums, pleased. “Yeah. And tell Bilbo that you love him, dork. If… if it gets bad, you can call me, y’know that? Even if we don’t end up laughing, I’d still rather you called me to just have something else to do. I don’t think you’re weak, or an addict, or anything like that.” 

“Yeah,” Reggie says after a second, all traces of laughter suddenly gone from his voice. “You too, man. I don’t know how bad it must have been for you to have called me tonight, but don’t let it get that bad before you do it again, okay?” 

“Next time I’ll just show up at your house with thickshakes,” Alex promises, texting Willie to ask if he’s free to call. It’s almost two am, so they might not be, but Willie sleeps weird hours, and Alex is feeling better, the kind of better that makes him want to remind Willie he loves them, for when he’s bad again and can’t say it for fear it won’t be returned. “And pizza.”

“I love you,” Reggie sighs. “Do that. Please do that.” 

——

He doesn’t call Reggie the next time it gets bad, or the time after that, but the third occurance is  _ awful  _ because he’d had a tipple with his parents, who’d suggested now that he was seventeen he was old enough to have a glass of red with dinner, and then they’d started to talk about the news of the pastor who came out at the church one district over, and the bottle is right  _ there,  _ and usually he calls Willie for parent-problems but he doesn’t want Willie to think he’s weak, or ill, or too much to handle, even though he probably is all of those things, and before he knows what he’s doing he’s excusing himself breathlessly and dialling Reggie’s number before he’s halfway out the room. 

“Can I come over?” Is all he says when Reggie picks up, hanging up the second Reggie says he can, sounding way more relieved about it than Alex would expect.

It’s not often he goes to Reggie’s, the yelling is always loud when his parents are home, and it puts Reggie on edge, so they always do their best to provide another place to hang out for him, but tonight Alex knows that Bobby is out of town supporting Carrie and Dirty Candy, and Reggie’s parents are away as well, attending some work ‘do for Reggie’s mom and pretending they’re a vaguely functional couple. 

When he gets there, Reggie looks about as shit as he feels when he leads them inside. “You want a drink?” He asks tiredly, not leaning forward to hug Alex. 

Alex makes a mental note not to touch him, and snorts. “That’s entirely the problem, Regbert. Got any Ribena?” 

He watches as Reggie’s eyes widen in horror as what he said catches up to him, but he doesn’t apologise, like Alex was afraid he might. Instead he just grins. It’s kind of worn, and Alex knows if he was any less visibly okay, Reggie would trip over himself begging forgiveness, but he’s never wanted anything like that from Reggie. “Pre-K specialty red coming right up,” he jokes, dragging Alex through to the kitchen. 

“You’re such a bastard,” Alex complains, following anyway. “You think my parents let me have Ribena pre-K? With that sugar content? Please.”

Reggie snorts and hands him a bottle of Ribena out the fridge and a wine glass, rooting through for a chocolate milkshake for himself. After a moment, he exhales slowly. “For the first time today, instead of thinking that I wanna knock myself out, I thought that I wanna get high,” he says after a moment of staring at his milkshake like it holds the answers to the Universe. “Same thing, I guess. I’ve got no interest in getting high for… whatever people usually get high for. But the word choice was… debilitating.”

Alex winces, pouring the Ribena into the glass even though it feels fucking stupid. “Shit, man… that sucks.” 

“Nah.” Reggie shakes his head after a moment. “I… I didn’t  _ tell  _ Hobbit, but I talked to him, so I’m okay. I just… I wanted to say it to someone. What’s up with you, though? You sounded a mess over the phone.” 

“I wanted a drink.” Alex shrugs. “But, not… not because of my head. My parents started talking about Pastor Helmsley from - y’know. And they let me have a glass at dinner, and the bottle was right there… I don’t usually think like that just for things that are going wrong. Usually it’s just when my head won’t shut up.” 

Reggie nods silently for a moment, then starts rifling through the cupboard that Alex knows he keeps sweets in, eventually throwing a DibDab at him. “Wanna watch High School Musical and eat a shittonne of sugar?” 

“Absolutely not,” Alex agrees, grabbing the Quavers off the table as well before making his way to the living room. “But I doubt you do either, so why not.”

Reggie sits upside down on the armchair, but quickly readjusts when he realises he can’t drink his milkshake like that. “Lexi, my dude, if we could provide ourselves with adequate serotonin by watching High School Musical, I would not be investing in sugar pills, and you would not be drinking Ribena from a wine glass.” 

Alex wrinkles his nose, sprawling out on the couch. “You know neither of those things are helping us, right?” 

“Look, if my brain says taking a pill would make me feel better, and I take a pill that tastes nice, I am skipping a whole lot of psychological bullshit,” Reggie insists, pulling up High School Musical 2. “Your brain is saying drink the adult juice, and you’re drinking kid juice from an adult glass. It’s easier than actually reckoning with yourself, yes?” 

“...yeah,” Alex admits. 

“Okay, so, unless you have something else you need to vent about, shut up and sing.”

——

He still doesn’t tell Willie about it, but it gets easier to plan the conversation in his head, now that they’ve got a system. 

Reggie calls him near three times in the worst weeks, when Bobby is dutifully touring colleges out of state with his parents, or supporting Dirty Candy when they can’t make it, at two thirty four am when his regular stuff isn’t working and he’s sick of pleading with deities that he doesn’t believe in for sleep, or when his parents are yelling and he wishes he had something strong enough to force him to drown them out. In the better weeks, when Bobby is home and Reggie can stay at his place and not deal with the yelling, and draw on his stomach with magic markers at thirty fifty seven in the morning, the calls are less frequent, but they’re still common enough, and he’s always ready to take a call from Alex.

Alex’s calls get more frequent. He considers coming out to his parents. Considers asking them for a therapist as well as the psychiatrist they ship him off to every time the letter about a medication review comes through. Considers telling them he doesn’t want to go to college to study law or medicine or politics. Considers telling them the band is doing well enough to shift his time and effort to it. Considers telling them that he’s dating a dude who’s the prettiest person Alex has ever met in his life, who has biceps the size of his head and who wears skirts that make Alex lose his train of thought for hours. 

He doesn’t do any of that, because he doesn’t want to intrude on Bobby and Carrie’s generosity even more, and as much as he thinks Julie meant it when she offered him and Reggie the spare room, he knows Luke already stays at hers half the time anyway, and there’s nothing he wants less than to walk in on Julie and Luke making out, and Willie’s stepdad kind of terrifies him, so he needs a place to live, at least until graduation. 

So, he calls Reggie, and he makes sure he’s doing okay before he decides on going to parties or getting drunk with the band, and he rehashes the conversation he could have with Willie a million times in his head, even though he hopes he’ll never have to have it. Every day not telling him feelings like lying, but there are so many possible ways that telling him could go wrong.

It doesn’t get easier, per se, but he spends less time counting glow-in-the-dark stars and trying to remember if the key to the cupboard where his dad’s expensive port was was kept in the study or the kitchen, and more time trying to put to words how Willie’s legs look in the new skirt they got, because Reggie decides that’s a good way to pass an evening when the sixteen pack of beer in the fridge sounds particularly tempting, and more time telling Luke that he appreciates him because they realise during one five am conversation that sometimes they rib Luke a little too much without the honest affection they always make sure to show each other, and more time kissing Julie’s forehead and Flynn’s cheek and telling them they’re the best sisters a guy could ask for, because when Reggie is out of state and can’t pick up the phone they take him for a midnight picnic and don’t ask what the problem is, and more time reminding Bobby and Carrie that he loves them, because Reggie whispers one time at thirty minutes past twelve in the afternoon when they’re both staring at the sky during a free period and wishing they could be a little bit out of their own heads, that their home life isn’t the greatest either. He lets Ray hug him instead of shying away, and he lets Bobby spray paint the band logo onto his drums, and he lets Flynn and Carrie paint each of his nails a different colour, even if he has to frantically scrub it off in the bathroom before he goes home. 

He’s eighteen and three months when they graduate, and he’s eighteen and four months when they sign a record label that ask them to move to New York, and he’s eighteen and four months and three days when Willie asks if he’d fancy going in on an apartment together with Bobby and Reggie, and they realise they really can’t put the conversation off any longer. 

Alex considers doing it over the phone, like he’s so used to with Reggie in case it goes wrong, but he owes Willie more than that, so he waits until he’s comfortable, three and a half hot chocolates into a cozy evening together, and he paused the film. 

“Hey, um…” he pauses, then laughs, letting his forehead thud against Willie’s collarbone. This is Willie, who he’s quite possibly been in love with since he tripped over the bike rack and broke two peoples’ bikes watching them skate in on the first day of fifth grade, who sings him made up lullabies over the phone when he’s not sleeping but his head isn’t bad enough to warrant a call to Reggie, and who kisses his forehead and calls him pretty in the sappiest fucking voices. “I have something to tell you, and I just… need you to let me say it, okay?” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated if you enjoyed this 💜


End file.
